CHAPTER II.
Imagination fondly stoops to trace The parlor splendours of that festive place.
Deserted Village.
There is little to interest in a narrative of early childhood, unless, indeed, one were writing on education.

We shall not, therefore, linger over the infancy of the motherless boy left to the protection of Mrs.
Margery Lobkins, or, as she was sometimes familiarly called, Peggy, or Piggy, Lob.

The good dame, drawing a more than sufficient income from the profits of a house which, if situated in an obscure locality, enjoyed very general and lucrative repute, and being a lone widow without kith or kin, had no temptation to break her word to the deceased, and she suffered the orphan to wax in strength and understanding until the age of twelve,--a period at which we are now about to reintroduce him to our readers.
The boy evinced great hardihood of temper, and no inconsiderable quickness of intellect.

In whatever he attempted, his success was rapid, and a remarkable strength of limb and muscle seconded well the dictates of an ambition turned, it must be confessed, rather to physical than mental exertion.

It is not to be supposed, however, that his boyish life passed in unbroken tranquillity.